Rabbit Heart
by Sunflower Kisses
Summary: Katara has always dreamed of taking revenge on the Fire Lord who murdered her mother. But when she gets the chance, will she succeed alone?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender._

_WARNING: All the characters and events are DIFFERENT than in the series. This means that mostly nothing will be the same. Just warning you so that there is not as much hate mail._

_Hope you enjoy._

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Rabbit Heart

Chapter 1

It was extremely cold this day, but the chill was comforting to the young Waterbender. She lifted her face towards the harsh breeze and smiled tight-lipped. The breath in front of her was misty and white, which tickled her face and made her laugh out loud. She hadn't felt this at home in a long time, ever since she had left her Water Tribe years ago to help the Avatar. This wistful moment could only last so long before it was destroyed.

"Are you okay?" a voice snapped her out of her peacefulness. "I'm _this _close to be sending you straight to the loony-bin my possibly insane sister."

"Sokka, don't be so childish," she said with a smile. Katara hadn't realized until then how much she had missed her home, her tribe, her mother.

"Do you ever miss home so much that it hurts?" she asked her brother, glancing off into the abandoned field where they were camped.

"Yeah," he said clasping her shoulder, "yes I do. But we have to be here. We can't keep holding onto something that isn't ours anymore." Katara began to sob slightly, pulling her hands to her face in order to try to hold back the tears that were beginning to fall uncontrollably. She rocked with emotion, wondering if she would be able to stop. She hadn't cried this much since her mother had been found murdered.

She took a deep breath and wiped her face, "Where's Aang?"

"How should I know where he is?" he asked with a smirk, "You two are like two pees in one crazy pod." Sokka then left after a pat on the back, leaving Katara to gather her strength that had seemed to leave her for a short while.

She glanced around, looking at nothing in particular, but rather remembering something most important. Her mother's laugh. Katara hadn't realized how much she missed that laugh. It was always the same: soft, yet strong and full of joy that it was infectious.

Katara noticed within these past years that she had been becoming more and more like her mother with each day. Not only the fact that she had the same large blue eyes as her mother, olive skin and long, chocolate hair, but also the fact that she had seen herself grow more and more aware of evil in the world, but knowing that there is still good left.

And what Katara remembered best was the manifest of pure, unadulterated evil--The Fire Lord himself. For it was because of him that her mother had been murdered. She was captured one night when the moon was gone-a lunar eclipse-and he had taken her for hostage. The Fire Lord was there himself, and Katara had seen him grab his mother and kill her because she had refused to leave.

And after that night, she had vowed to not only take care of her brother Sokka, but also vowed to take revenge on that man. So when her and her brother had found Aang and learned of his destiny as the Avatar, she knew it would be a chance to find the Fire Lord and make hum suffer as he had made her.

Katara also knew that she would not be able to destroy the Fire Lord until she was to master Waterbending. And that is exactly what she had done. And she even surprised herself when she had mastered the labored Bloodbending. She hadn't even heard of the practice until she had met the Waterbending master who had taught her all of his ways.

She owed a lot of her success to many people. She knew now that she had to go through with her plan.

Especially now that she was in the Fire Kingdom.

Rabbit Heart

Chapter 2

Katara held her hands by the fire, wishing that she was a fire bender and could make the flame a little bit larger. Unfortunately, Aang was still very insecure about his fire bending and refused to use it to grow the fire.

She huffed out of frustration, almost blowing the fire out completely. It's flame reached down to the ground and shrunk, but fortunately rose again. Even though the flame was about the size of her index finger. Toph chuckled beside her and moved her feet and swayed her head in front of the flames.

"What are you doing?" Katara asked the earth bender.

Toph looked up just enough to smile and respond, "Thinking of how I metal bended and trapped those fire benders in the boxes." Her smiled widened frighteningly.

"Oh, well…that's…nice."

Toph laughed again and went back to her thoughts of torture. At least I'm not the only one who is a sadist, Katara thought.

The flames licked the ground, dancing and entranced her. Katara lost herself in them. She imagined how she would approach the Fire Lord and how she would go through with killing him. But always at the time when she was to confront him, she did not know what else to do, or how to do it.

Kicking in frustration, the dirt flew into the fire and it disappeared. Toph exclaimed in frustration and crossed her arms, glaring at Katara.

"You know," Toph huffed, "You really need to learn _manners_. When you are angry, you do _not_ put out the only source of warmth out of frustration." And with that, she left towards Appa where Aang and Sokka were sleeping.

Katara just sat there, staring at the smoke. She wondered how her friends would think if they knew why she really wanted to be here. Would they call her foolish? Or would they support her? She doubted that they would even find out until the end. She refused to let anyone in on the plan, for fear that either Aang or Sokka would disapprove. She couldn't afford that.

Not now that she had decided to leave the group and head towards the Fire Lord tomorrow.

She was so close. So close that she could almost feel the flames.

The feeling of warm fur and a huff of warm air woke her. She raised her head, only to find that Oppa had been staring at her. And for a quick moment, Appa had seemed almost human-like in his gesture. Katara closed her eyes and shook her head to get the sleep out of her. She opened her eyes slowly, so that she could catch Appa in this human-state again. But instead of finding that, Appa had his tongue hanging out and swinging his head wildly about while Aang and Sokka were dancing around him. Toph grunted and pulled Momo to her ears and fell back asleep.

She shrugged to herself and chuckled. She was going to miss this, the freeness, the innocence of it all. Ever since that horrible day when her mother was killed and fire engulfed her village, Katara had no choice but to seek revenge. No choice but to kill the man who had cause so much grief for her, for her brother and for her father.

Her father.

She had remembered that night her father was gone talking to one of the neighbors. He had come out too late, at the time when the Fire Lord Ozai slit her mothers throat.

Tears pooled in her eyes and she wiped then away with the back of her hand. Katara knew this was the right thing to do. All she needed to now was leave without anyone noticing where she was going. It was the only way.

Aang and Sokka stopped dancing and looked towards Katara who had finally walked back towards the camp. Sokka, instead of asking her how she was, he started to whistle and pick up rocks before throwing them right back down. Thank you brother, Katara told herself. You are such a supportive brother.

"Katara," Aang asked softly, "Are you alright? Your eyes are really red." He looked at her quizzically and glanced back towards Sokka, as if he would know the answers.

"She was crying," he spieled, "You know girls…they are always crying." Aang thought for a moment, and then nodded his head in agreement.

"We need to go to the town for some food. We shall leave now," Aang stated and began walking towards the market. In tow was the rest of them, including Momo.

As soon as they all reached the village, they all grabbed some Fire Nation clothing that was lying out front, and running for dear life. They needed a disguise because anyone that was not a fire bender was not welcome in this village. Especially the Avatar.

Katara chose a red skirt and a cropped one-shoulder top. Her hair was out of it's braid, and instead fell freely past her shoulders and down her back. She had never in her life had shown so much skin before, and felt rather naked. The only thing that was left to represent her tribe was her blue eyes and the necklace that her mother had given her. She wore this one backwards so that the symbol of the water tribe was covered and yet with her.

Her friends dressed in similar clothing and decided to walk around the village triumphantly. Someone from the market made a comment as they passed by that said "What, do you think you are the King?"

Sokka raised his head and exclaimed, "The King is a fool! I would be twice as better a king as he would ever be!"

His comment was met by silence. Except for the sound of a couple gasps.

"Oops," Sokka mumbled, "I mean…the King is great! He is twice…no a hundred times more better a king than I would ever be!" He smile widely and skidded away, embarrassed.

Katara knew that the time was now to run. All of her friends were distracted in trying to cover up what had happened. The opportune time to move was now. And as Aang, Sokka and Toph gathered fruits, Katara ducked to the right, through a alley, and towards the Fire Temple where she would face the Fire Lord Ozai.

May the moon protect her.

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**Authors Note:**

**I hope that you do not hate this story so much that you quit reading it. Give it a chance. Please. It's been in my head ever since I first saw the episode, except for the mention of Toph, she came later in the series and I fell in love with her. =]**

**Please review.**

**It would make me oh so happy.**


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender_

_WARNING: Characters, events and overall mostly everything is DIFFERENT than the series. I'm sorry, but it's my vision and a story at that._

_I hope that you enjoy anyway =]_

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Rabbit Heart

Chapter 3

Katara ran.

She ran as fast as she could. Although she did not know why she was running. Whether or not she was running away from something or towards it. Was she running away from her friends, or towards her doom?

Katara wasn't sure which was true, maybe both. All she knew was that she needed to run, and that is exactly what she did. Her feet moved swiftly underneath her to the point where she didn't even feel them hit the ground as she dodged people and swerved to and fro. She had a general idea of where to go, and so she ran. The water bender figured that the place where the Fire Lord was hidden would not be hard to miss.

She continued to run, past people, trees, buildings. Until finally, she reached it. The Fire Lord's Temple. Katara could not believe it. The building itself looked at though it had been built out of molten lava and towered over ten stories above her head. She stopped when she saw the guarded gates.

Katara was prepared for this. For who wouldn't have guarded gates in the Fire Nation?

She ducked behind the trees and ran around to the other side of the wall where there was no one guarding. The water bender gathered her courage and grabbed a piece of jagged rock that formed the wall and began to ascend. As she reached the top, she became so proud of herself that she smiled and bounced over the edge.

Upon her way down, she felt something grab hold of her leg and froze.

"Girl!" screamed the guard, "Where do you think you are headed?" His face was masked with anger and he had two large scars across his right eyes that stretched to his mouth. And on his hands that were grabbing her, he had a very large burn mark that covered his entire hand.

Katara did not know what to do, so she remained silent and fell to the ground. He ordered her to stand and grabbed her arm forcefully, pulling her up and towards the Temple.

"Guess where I'm taking you?" he smiled an evil smile as he dragged her. Katara knew not to speak at this point and to just do as she was told. "The Fire Lord. He will know what to do with you."

But if he had only known that she wanted to go to Fire Lord Ozai, he might have not been so eager. Katara, although she was frightened of what might come, she was also very anxious to see him. To face the murderer that had killed her mother those years ago. The very man that she had sworn to kill that very night.

"Be prepared to suffer," the guard joked, "Suffer greatly."

When she reached the inside, she was tossed to a bench that was by two large doors, and the guard stepped through then. But not without threatening her that if she were to move, she would not be able to make it out of he Temple alive. And because of that, Katara sat on the cold, and hard cement bench that was surrounded by portraits of the many Fire Lord's before Lord Ozai.

But one portrait stuck out to her.

It was one of Zuko. It looked to be recent because he looked so distinguished, so sure of himself. Katara was reminded of the time when she had been trapped with him by his sister Azula. He had confided in her and she had confided in him of her mother's death and how it had been the Fire Nation's fault.

After that time, Zuko and her had a mutual understanding, and connection. Both of their mothers were killed when they were young and they were expected to live their lives normally as if it hadn't happened. But, as they both knew, life doesn't work like that. Life was cruel to them, but it shaped them differently. Zuko had grabbed onto his hate and used that to fuel him, while Katara, although she did have plenty of hate, she did not let it control her.

At least, not until recently.

Katara took a deep breath and automatically coughed. The air was musty and filled with smoke. She waited for what felt like days for the guard to return, and when he did, she wished that he didn't.

"Come with me," he said and grabbed her arm again.

"Ouch!" Katara exclaimed and took hold of her arm in agony. He merely looked at her and continued on. She felt like she had made a terrible mistake. What had she been thinking coming here? She couldn't possibly use water to save her. For all she had was a vile of it stored upon her person. And she sure as hell knew that the Temple did not have any abundant water sources lying about around her.

Her heart sank.

Katara felt as if she had gained two hundred pounds and her feet dragged on the floor. How could she be so stupid?

Finally, she felt stillness and noticed that she was no longer being dragged. She opened her eyes and looked up, only to find the Fire Lord, Zuko and Azula looking down on her.

She was thrown to the floor by the guard and left alone, waiting for her punishment.

"I hear you were trying to trespass by climbing over the wall?" the Fire Lord asked nonchalantly, head down, fingers twirling.

Katara gulped and nodded.

The Fire Lord looked up towards her and yelled, "You are a fool for trying to trespass here! Do you know the consequences?"

Katara took a deep breath. Now was her chance to do something. Anything. It was worth a shot at least. She came so far.

"Is it any better than what you had done to my mother?" she mumbled.

"Speak up, girl!"

Katara glared at him in the eyes and screamed, "IS IT ANY BETTER THAN WHAT YOU HAD DONE TO MY _MOTHER_?"

His eyes narrowed, "Is this what this is? Petty _revenge_?"

Kataras blood boiled with rage, "You KILLED my MOTHER! You BASTERD!" And with that she took her vile of water, changed it into an icicle, and threw it towards his heart. The Fire Lord was shocked, and did not block the blow. But Katara's aim was off because her eyes had began to fill with tears and instead of hitting his heart, the icicle punctured his left arm.

"A Water Bender…" Fire Lord Ozai said softly.

"Yes," Katara choked out, her throat closing in, "You came to my village five years ago and killed my mother!"

The Fire Lord waved his hand in a motion saying that he wanted someone to come closer. Katara felt arms underneath both of her armpits and soon she was in the air, going closer and closer to the Fire Lord.

He took her chin and examined her, pulling her chin this way and that. Until finally, his hand fell fast and he looked away.

"Look at me!" Katara exclaimed, "Remember my face! It is the same face as my mother. The woman that you MURDERED!"

"ENOUGH!" the Fire Lord blared.

"I remember your mother," he said softly.

Katara's eyes widened and she stepped back, tripping down a step.

"And I also remember how she looked," he began, "when I killed her!"

Katara burst into tears. Her face was covered by her hands and she was kneeling on the floor, shivering. Completely forgetting where she was and why she was here. For this moment, she finally received the recognition that she had wanted for years.

"And now, to see her daughter," he began, "What a pleasure. It is unfortunate that you will have to suffer the same fate."

"To the dungeons!" he ordered. Katara looked towards Zuko for support or a simple look of emotion on his face, but instead saw nothing. His face was turned away and his sister was chuckling to herself.

And before Katara knew it, she was locked into a small, dark and smoke filled dungeon. Just waiting for her release.

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**Authors Note:**

**I hope that you liked this chapter. I know, I know that a lot of things aren't making sense. But I'm sure that things will come together and there will be some twists and stuff coming at ya.**

**And I also know that everything is different and you must be mad. But hey, this is a FANfiction. It doesn't have to go with the book or the show.**

**But I do hope you like it.**

**And I do hope that you will review it.**

**=]**


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender, but I do own ALL of the box sets. I just got the third season today and am SOOOOO happy._

_I hope you like my story, even though, obviously, it is quite different than the original. And it is like that for a reason, because it was a story my mind came up with one day. Completely random. But I decided to write it anyhow._

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Rabbit Heart

Chapter 3

Katara woke to the sound a door slamming and hard steps echoing through the walls and shaking the ground beneath her. She thought of Toph and how she likely would have been able to bend herself out of this mess. And she thought of Aang, who would have been able to blow his way out of the cell, with his air bending abilities. And she thought of Sokka, who would have…still been in here as well.

The Waterbender tilded her head away from the large orb of light that was coming towards her. It stopped just before it reached her cell and turned, and then decided to come forward again. Katara held her breath, waiting for who was visiting her, especially at this time in the morning.

The light was a fire source and was coming from a hand, the face was darkened and she was unable to make it out. They just stood there, looking at her. And breathing.

It seemed as though the moment lasted forever. All the breathing. In and out. In and out. In and out. Nothing else, but that sound. Katara did not find the courage to speak, afraid that she would ruin whatever she had here. Hospitality?

After around twenty minutes, the intruder stood up and left. Leaving just as loudly as he had come in. and just as mysteriously. A little while after that, she was given a little bowl of rice, and a little bit of water. And boy, was she ever hungry.

Being in that cell, Katara had the time to think. Think about the things that she had done wrong in her life, and the things that she had done right. She regretted nothing she concluded, even this last part that had landed her in prison and away from her friends.

She wondered what they were doing right then. Were they looking for her? Were they even worried about her?

Of course they were.

They were her friends. How could she be so stupid enough to believe that they wouldn't try to come after her and save her from her sentence. Had she counted on that all along? Their help? Certainly not, she thought. But she hadn't thought that she would get caught. Truthfully, she had no idea what was going to happen.

All she knew was that she was going to be in here for a while.

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Days went by without that mysterious man's visit and no word from the Fire Lord as to what was going to happen to her. Katara began to get restless. She walked back and forth inside the cell, around in circles, and daydreamed constantly. Sometimes, she didn't know what was real and what wasn't.

That is, until she heard a bang.

By the beating of her heart inside her chest, and the way her breath was hitching, she definitely knew that this was real. Realer than anything she had experience in a few days.

The same light returned again, as along with the heavy footsteps. And when the light reached her, it dropped, as if the person sat down. Right in front of her cell and just sat there. Looking at her once again. But what was there to look at? A lonely pathetic young girl who got herself in too much trouble and was unable to get herself out? A toy? Entertainment?

After a few moments of silence, Katara struck the courage to speak.

"What are you doing here?" she asked softly, scared that if she raised her voice, she would upset the visitor. And she really did not need to be left alone again, even if the company was a ruthless fire bender.

At first, there was no answer. Just heavy breathing. But then, she heard breath go in, and a soft voice exit. "Studying you." the voice said simply.

The voice came out soft and raspy. As if the person were trying to disguise their voice. Not wanting to be found out. But it was definitely male.

"Who are you? Please show your face." she pleaded. All that she wanted was to know that this person were real. And that she was not truly alone.

The light adjusted slightly, but only to the point to where Katara could make out that there was a dark hood covering his face. The light from his hands reflected in his eyes, and shown bright amber, because of the fire.

And as soon as she had seen, he left. Running down the corridor and slamming the door behind him. Leaving Katara in darkness and confusion.

Who is this man that comes and watches her?

And why does he not want himself to be seen?

Katara turned towards her blanket and flat, hard pillow and curled up to sleep.

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**Authors Note:**

**I hope that you liked this chapter. Oooooo. I wonder who this masked man could be?**

**Haha.**

**These chapters are going to be a little short each time. That way I can get more out more often. If I try to make them bigger, I get really frustrated and stressed out that I don't finish them at all. So, that's all I can do. And plus I thought this was the best place to stop this chapter.**

**Please REVIEW!**

**And…check out the book NIGHTLIGHT by the Harvard Lampoon. **

**Hilarious. **

**Simply Hilarious.**


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